Christmas is coming – are you prepared? – November 1, 2005

From angels to snowmen: Linotype Xmas Font

Bad Homburg, November 1st, 2005. Whatever your angle to the Christmas story, Linotype Xmas™ font family offers a rich palette of symbols to spruce up this year’s holiday season. From nativity scenes and shimmering stars to snowboarding Santas, the font family features three sets of characters, each with a unique focus and over 60 symbols to choose from. “Xmas Story” covers the classic religious elements, “Xmas Essentials” emphasizes more general seasonal décor, while “Xmas Modern” takes the liberty to break with traditions and poke a little fun at typical Christmas clichés. Suitable for whole wintry landscapes or that extra little seasonal touch, Linotype presents the Xmas font with ample time for creative application in any number of Christmas related scenarios.

The advantages of a Christmas font as opposed to a collection of clip art are manifold. Aside from ease of accessibility, a font also provides the ability to quickly change colors and sizes, meaning the range of interpretations are nearly limitless – and always right at your fingertips. The Linotype Xmas fonts are therefore much like any alphabet, which can be used to tell an infinite number of stories, new or old, traditional or irreverent. To facilitate application, the fonts includes pdf-files with keyboard layouts, allowing the almost 200 symbols to be seen at a glance.

“Xmas Story” is the font dedicated to the biblical side of the holidays. Nativity scenes can be conjured up in seconds, complete with a radiant Christ child, gift-bearing kings, a kneeling Madonna or even awe-struck donkeys. For atmosphere, there are a host of bearded shepherds, stars, angels, harps and, of course, plenty of innocent sheep and lambs, including a black sheep for variation.

“Xmas Essentials” provides a more neutral take on the holiday season, focusing on elements generally associated with the end of the year: frost, snowflakes, starry skies. But there are also more “Christmasy” images to choose from as well, like ornaments, pointy trees or wrapped presents – essential holiday décor, but not specifically religious.

“Xmas Modern” offers the chance to have a little fun. Santa roller skating, Santa throwing snowballs, Santa dancing with an iPod. The variations continue with a selection of unusually clad reindeer, snowmen…and snowwomen, as well. Sometimes they are being mischievous, sometimes romantic. Sometimes the images are outright macabre, such as a snowman almost completely melted, except his outstretched stick arm holding a candle.

In no time, the shop shelves will be lined with chocolate angels. So don’t wait for the first snow, drop by www.linotype.com now to get a head start on your Christmas shopping. The three fonts (of over 60 symbols each) are available separately. Better yet, with the whole Linotype Xmas font family, you’ll be divinely prepared for the full range of holiday wishes.

Linotype GmbH, based in Bad Homburg, Germany and a member of the Heidelberg Group, looks back onto a history of 119 years. Building on its strong heritage, Linotype develops state-of-the-art font technology and offers more than 6,000 original fonts, covering the whole typographic spectrum from antique to modern, from east to west, and from classical to experimental. All typefaces (in PostScript™ and TrueType™ format as well as more than 2,300 fonts in OpenType™) are now also available for instant download at www.linotype.com. In addition to supplying digital fonts, Linotype also offers comprehensive and individual consultation and support services for font applications in worldwide (corporate) communication.